by Sandra Hill
He felt an ominous lurch down below. Holy shit! That’s all he would need. To get his mojo back in the midst of all his other troubles. Well, not really mojo, that would imply sexual appeal. More like sexual hunger.
I am in such trouble, he thought.
And he could swear he heard a voice in his head say, You have no idea.
“What did you say?” he asked her.
“Nothing.”
“There is one thing that might work,” he told her. “If Beau were to open the shield for a moment, long enough for you and me to slip through, and then close it right away, we could teletransport to the vangel headquarters, assuming you still have the ability to teletransport. I don’t.” Or I would have been out of here by now. “Once we figure out the lay of the land, so to speak . . . how Vikar and Michael are going to react to me, rather us, assuming we will be forgiven . . . we could come back for Beau, Patience, and Grimelda, assuming Michael would permit that.”
“You have a whole lot of assumptions in there, buddy. Yes, I believe Beau has the skill to open and close the shield. He’s lots smarter than he pretends to be,” she said.
“He was a petroleum scientist,” Zeb informed her.
“Really? I was thinking redneck alligator wrestler, or something equally low class. Does that make me a bigot?”
“Against alligator wrestlers, rednecks, or just good old southern boys?” he asked.
She made a face at his teasing. “What happened to him?”
“He got involved with some voodoo priestess, Lilith, and she turned him into a witch, or warlock, or whatever you call male witches.”
“I should have known. The way he figured out your diagrams for the shielding right off!”
“Oh, don’t go getting mushy over Beau,” Zeb advised her. “He and his voodoo babe had a running business in dead bodies down on the bayou there for a while, murder for witchly hire. But then Jasper got a whiff of his evil scent and that was the end of that. Of course, Lilith managed to escape detection. The same old story, really, women causing men’s evil. Goes right back to Adam and Eve. If it weren’t for Eve, Adam would still be lazing about the Garden of Eden.”
“You’re delusional,” she concluded.
“Probably,” he agreed . . . amiably, in his opinion.
Which didn’t warrant at all her snide remark, “Dumber than dirt.” She quickly added, “Forget that idea, though. Beau and the others are never going to let us go off without them.”
“Not even if the alternative is Jasper breaking the shield?”
“I don’t think so. They’ll say all or nothing. Five of us, or none of us, can leave.”
Zeb rolled his eyes.
“As for five of us going through the shield, and then going off in all different directions . . . forget that, too. I already discussed it with the coven. Grimelda threatened to put a curse on us that would turn our brains to oatmeal. Patience said she could put something in our food that would keep us on the potty for a week. Beau’s working on some kind of rope device that would bind us all together like beads on a rosary.”
“We could take them by surprise, open the shield and take off, leaving it open behind us,” Zeb pointed out.
“I’m not sure I could pull off a tandem teletransport with you so quickly,” Regina said.
“And that would be uncaring of what happened to those left behind,” Zeb remarked. “Not very vangelic of you?”
“Weren’t you thinking the same thing?”
“Well, yeah, but I’m not a vangel.”
“What are you?”
“No clue,” he said. Then, “So, nix that idea?”
She nodded. “Here’s something else to worry about. Our three friends are showing more and more demonic attributes. They’ve even burst into demonoid form a few times before mentally changing themselves back.”
“And that is a worry . . . because?”
“Because, aside from the chaos it’s causing, they might just kill us, accidentally.”
“What chaos?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yes, unfortunately, I do.”
“For one thing, Beau is in full lust mode,” she explained. “He’s hit on everyone, except Grimelda so far. I mean, big-time. He doesn’t even try to hide the fact that he’s horny as hell.”
“All guys are like that, sometimes.” Or all the time.
She shook her head. “All guys are not demons, who take what they want when they want, even if that means rape. And, hey, don’t think you’re excluded from his radar. When you’re in one of your unconscious states, he could take you on.”
Zeb was appalled, but she was right. Demons . . . including demon vampires . . . had no morals. And they could be bisexual. Any sexual, really. The more perverted the better. “What else is contributing to the chaos?”
“Patience isn’t making things any better by walking around in those skimpy bikinis,” Regina went on. “She thinks when she gets out of here that she might try her hand at becoming a Victoria’s Secret model. She says it’s all those years as a Puritan, then being stuck in Jasper’s various households without spreading her wings, so to speak.”
She was right. Chaos. “And Grimelda?”
“The scary thing is, I don’t know. She keeps to herself, in that garden of yours. She’s up to something, I suspect. Bottom line is, the blood urge is still in them. Yours is satisfied by my letting you take little sips of mine. And mine is satisfied because I am presumably saving you. I’m afraid the three of them are going to gang bang fang me sometime when I least expect it. And drain me in the process. Then where would we be?”
“In other words, we need to decide something fast. Even if it’s the wrong decision.”
She nodded.
But then, the decision was taken from their hands.
Beau, clearly distraught, came scrambling down off the roof. Luckily, he was in humanoid form, wearing a pair of Zeb’s jeans, and nothing more. If he’d been in demonoid form, he would have probably fallen through the roof.
“Someone, or something, is trying to break the shield,” he said hurriedly. “Offshore. Then from above.” He sucked in a breath. “Doesn’t seem to be a horde. Only one or two.” He bent over at the waist, hands on thighs, and inhaled deeply to calm down.
Zeb grabbed a bamboo fishing pole he’d cut in half to use as a cane, levering himself into a sitting position, then standing. “Get weapons, Beau; they’re under the floorboard in my bedroom closet. And, Regina, call Grimelda inside. Tell Patience to close and lock all the windows and doors.”
They rushed inside. Well, Beau and Regina rushed. He hobbled. And was about to close the sliding doors after him.
“Wait!” Regina said. She went back outside and was standing at the rail, sniffing the air.
“Are you trying to smell my rain again? Bad timing, sweetheart!” he called out to her.
“Don’t be an idiot. It’s vangels.”
“What?”
“It’s vangels trying to enter.”
“Are you sure?”
“As rain. Or dumb men.”
Zeb turned to Beau. “Open the ocean side shield, the number six lever, but only until they enter. Then close it immediately.” He would have gone himself, but Beau could move quicker. “And, Regina, gather the weapons. Just in case.”
Thus it was that, a short time later, Trond and Cnut Sigurdsson came rushing into the bungalow in full VIK mode. Long black cloaks over tight black T-shirts and black jeans and black athletic shoes, carrying swords in one hand and pistols in the other. Trond had his usual military haircut. Cnut still sported the Ragnor Lothbrok look with the sides of his head shaved, and an intricate dark blond braid running from his forehead, across his crown and down to his nape where the tail was caught in a leather thong. Rambo and Thor. Vangel warriors.
Zeb could only imagine how they must appear to Cnut and Trond. Him standing, well, leaning on his broadsword as a cane, having dropped his bamboo cane coming inside. A
nd next to Zeb, a red-haired vangel witch, spread-legged in a military defense mode, knees slightly bent, holding forth a rifle. Beau had an AK-47 at the ready. Patience, in her red-and-white-checked bikini, had a long-handled ladle, the one she’d been using to make fish chowder for lunch. And Grimelda, the aged, cackling crone, carried a garden rake and muttered something that sounded like “Bring it on!”
“Well, well, well,” Trond said with a grin. “What have we here?”
Cnut answered for them, “I smell witch. Must be Zeb and his very own coven.”
“We’re called the Crazy Coven back at Horror,” Beau informed him with a grin.
“That’ll do,” Cnut said.
“By the by, Zeb,” Trond added. “You look like shit. What bulldozer ran you over?”
“Jasper.”
“Ah,” Trond and Cnut said as one.
“Did you know you’re bald now? Was it lice?” Cnut asked. “Not a bad look.”
“You would think that with your hoity-toity Viking hairstyle,” Trond remarked.
“Hoity-toity my ass!” Cnut responded, giving his brother the bird, openly.
“It’s probably a sexual thing.” Trond waggled his eyebrows at Zeb. “You know what they say about bald men and how they can please women in certain sexual positions?”
“Do tell, brother,” Cnut said.
“NO!” Regina interjected. “Don’t tell.”
Zeb tried for his own levity. “Don’t the Navy SEALs have a saying when they rescue someone, Trond? ‘We are the Navy SEALs. Uncle Sam has sent us to bring you home.’”
“The only problem with that, my friend,” Trond said, “is that we, at the moment, are vangels, not Navy SEALs, and Uncle Sam is Michael the Archangel, and home, meaning the castle in Transylvania, is currently in lockdown.”
Uh-oh! Lockdown. What does that mean?
“Regina, have you any idea what you have unleashed?” Cnut asked then.
She shook her head slowly from side to side. “We’ve been cut off from the rest of the world here, no cable or Internet or cell phone reception.”
“In a nutshell, Jasper has declared a war against all vangels, and he has three thousand Lucies and demons at his disposal.”
Zeb could have predicted that; so, he wasn’t shocked. Regina and the others were, though.
“Plus, he wants you and Zeb, alive,” Cnut said.
She shivered but raised her chin. Defiant witch!
“How ’bout us?” Beau asked.
“Dead or alive. Either way, you’d end up in his hands.” Cnut didn’t look at all concerned. Why would he? Zeb asked himself. They were demons, after all, and Cnut didn’t owe them anything, like Zeb did.
“Then you have to rescue all of us,” Beau said, raising his weapon, as if that would do any good.
“Is that a fact?” Trond fingered his own weapon.
“Lower the piece, Doucet,” Zeb ordered in a soft voice that brooked no argument. “Everybody, settle down. Let’s sit down and talk this over. Surely, there’s a solution.”
“Do you have any beer?” Trond asked.
“No. Beau drank the last of it,” Zeb replied.
“There were only six bottles,” Beau said defensively.
“I have plenty of wine, though,” Zeb said.
“That’ll do,” Trond said. Just then, he seemed to notice that Patience’s bikini matched the curtain on the second set of windows in the kitchen. He looked at her, the curtain, then Zeb. And grinned.
Zeb just shrugged.
Grimelda left the room, trailing her rake after her. She said she had a boiling cauldron that needed tending on the patio.
“What is that smell?” Cnut said then, sniffing the air.
“Grimelda?” Regina asked. The old lady was a bit ripe.
Cnut shook his head and continued to sniff.
“Patience was making chowder,” Regina offered.
Cnut shook his head some more and continued to sniff. “No. It smells like rain. Do you think a storm’s coming?”
“It’s me,” Zeb admitted, feeling his face heat. “I supposedly stink like a friggin’ rain forest.”
“No, not rain,” Trond said to Cnut, ignoring Zeb’s comment. “I smell cinnamon. Like those buns the Amish sell down at the market.” Trond tilted his head in question toward Regina.
“Rain and cinnamon? You guys are imagining things.” This from Beau, who was helping Zeb into one of the recliners.
Suddenly, Trond and Cnut made the connection. As one, their gazes fixed on Zeb, then Regina. They let out hoots of laughter.
“Lifemates! Can you believe it?” Trond said.
“The witch and the demon! What a combination!” Cnut remarked.
Regina understood before Zeb did. “Oh, no! Absolutely not! I don’t even like him.”
“You do so,” Zeb said, before thinking. “You said last night that my bald head is hot.”
“I did not!”
“Well, you implied it. Besides, why did you rescue me if you don’t like me?”
“I did it for me, not you, idiot!” She glared at Zeb. “Why are you arguing? Do you want a lifemate?”
“Hell, no! I mean, absolutely not!”
“Cinnamon rain . . . has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” Trond said to Cnut, clearly to annoy Zeb and Regina.
Regina stomped off.
And Zeb asked the two Sigurdssons, “Is there any way to undo a lifemate connection?”
“If I were you, I would be more worried about how we are going to get all of you out of here,” Trond said.
“Right,” Zeb agreed. “Escape first, broken heart later.”
Trond was surprised at his answer. “Will you have a broken heart?”
“I always have a broken heart.”
Chapter 9
Preparing for a road trip . . .
Cnut and Trond spent the next few hours giving Zeb some of their blood to speed his recovery. Vangel blood was like a triple dose of antibiotics and a miracle drug combined. There had been cases of vangels near death who’d come back to life after such ministrations, and quickly, too. Plus, the two VIK members were older and stronger vangels than Regina, and their blood presumably more potent.
Oddly, Regina missed the blood-giving task.
And, no, it wasn’t the lifemate nonsense. There was just something that spoke to a woman’s maternal side when nurturing a sick man. Didn’t matter if it was the flu or a terminal disease laying a man low. Not that Regina felt anything close to maternal about Zeb. Far from it! But she’d gotten him this far, and she felt a responsibility for carrying through her mission. Who was she kidding? She wanted to be the one to take him back to the castle. Package delivered. Pride of accomplishment. I-told-you-I-could-do-it! End of case. Instead, Trond and Cnut . . . men . . . would probably brag that they had to rescue her . . . a poor weak woman . . . and pick up the pieces. Not that she needed rescuing, much. She was handling things just fine. Mostly.
At least, that’s what she tried to tell herself.
Meanwhile, she and the others were preparing to close up the bungalow. Which was probably a futile effort. If Jasper discovered the hideaway, he would no doubt raze it to the ground in frustration.
Regina had ordered Grimelda to take a shower or Regina wouldn’t take her with them. While the old crone was in the bathroom, tossing curses right and left, Regina put Grimelda’s dirty garments into the washing machine. They would probably disintegrate from age and filth. She could match Grimelda curse for curse anyhow, and Regina had told her so.
And Regina had ordered Patience to ditch the bikinis, for now, at least. She doubted Michael would look too kindly on the demon witches, to begin with, but a half-naked one would surely push all his archangel buttons. Patience was also doing a lot of grumbling about Regina and her bossy ways.
Beau needed no ordering. He was smart enough to know his future was on the line, and he was behaving as well as a demon could. In fact, he was being downright ingratiating toward C
nut and Trond, who were taking advantage of him by having him fetch and carry for them. Beau’s model behavior was only temporary, of course. Regina suspected Beau was planning a trip “down the bayou” as soon as he could manage to slip away from the castle. A little redneck retribution was in line for the voodoo priestess Lilith, assuming she was still there.
“How is he?” Regina asked when Cnut and Trond came out of Zeb’s bedroom.
“Asleep,” Trond said, “but better.”
“We’ll give him an hour or so, another shot at fanging, then we hit the road. Time to blow this Coke stand,” Cnut said. “Is everyone ready?”
“As ready as we’ll ever be.”
“I still can’t believe he had barbed wire around his cock . . . I mean, penis,” Trond said for about the hundredth time. “Wish I coulda seen that.”
“Me, too.” Cnut put a hand reflexively over his groin.
“It was awesome,” Beau contributed. “Ah knew a guy one time who pierced his cock with an industrial bolt, said it enhanced his lady’s pleasure. Gave new meanin’ ta screwing, that’s fer sure.”
Trond and Cnut bent over laughing.
“I don’t imagine Zeb’s wiring would have pleased a woman, though,” Trond speculated, once he wiped the tears of mirth from his eyes. “Too sharp.”
“Ouch!” Cnut concurred.
Really, that’s all the men wanted to talk about regarding Zeb. Forget about all his other tortures, they were fixated over wires poking manparts. How it felt. Was it unbearable? Did he see stars? Was there blood? How many stitches did he have? Who sewed up his penile wounds? Did he think it would impair his sex life in the future? How about erections? Could they watch when the stitches came out?
Men!
Regina had something more important on her mind, like herself, but she didn’t dare ask what her fate would be when they returned home. So, instead, she homed in on other subjects. “The castle will be crowded, I assume, with all the vangels being called in.”
